The future of war may be autonomous, but the history is full of real people. And those real people have real stories to tell. From the First World War to more recent battles like Iraq, veterans have documented their tales in several formats: articles, videos, and even audio.

Through a few websites, you can relive all of their stories for free. In case you forgot about the hardships they faced, here’s a refresher.

There are plenty of non-war stories, but the site is especially detailed when dealing with stories from the two World Wars. Take, for example, the story of the famous Christmas truce. By drawing from multiple books that talked to people who were there, Eyewitness to History stitches together a single, cohesive tale of everything that happened that day.

There are also several stories from other wars and battles, like the American Civil War, so check the site’s index as well.

The BBC was formed just after the First World War, so it obviously reported on it and its aftermath extensively. The Imperial War Museum is another repository of interviews with veterans as well as other military personnel from the time. Host Dan Snow brings it all together to tell World War stories that you’ve never heard before.

The Reddit community at /r/MilitaryStories has contributors from different parts of the American military, as well as others around the world. Given that it’s only a little over a year old, the tales told here are often more recent than the world wars or even Vietnam or Korea.

You won’t get a new submission every day, but the forum usually sees about five or more stories a week. Since its focus is purely on stories and nothing else, it’s also a lot more entertaining and light-hearted. The commenters too tend to be more respectful, than getting into arguments like you would see in other sub-reddits.

America’s National Endowment for the Arts led an initiative during the 2000s war in Iraq and Afghanistan called Operating Homecoming. This project put soldiers through writing workshops, where they were asked to write home about their war experiences. Under the tutelage of respected writers, the soldiers penned some of the best “from-the-frontlines” letters you’ll ever read.

The New Yorker magazine published several of these, which are now available to read online for free. Each letter starts with its author, what they did, and where they were writing from.

The Telling Project is a new initiative that brings together military veterans and family members to tell their stories on stage. By employing the basics of theater, the stories are made much better too.

It’s a travelling show, but several of them have now been recorded and available online. You can watch over 40 shows of The Telling Project on their site. The project’s makers help the veterans script their story perfectly, teach them the basics of performing it, and rehearse with them too.